i am about to admit something majorly embarrassing...
i am addicted to oprah's lifeclass. i watched all the episodes. i loved them. i cried every. single. time. yes it is ridiculous. yes i am ashamed. but i learned something and because i promise to always share the wealth, i've decided to take to my blog and share the info with ya'll.
when i came home from south africa the whole world felt upside down. i'd left home for a year and while i was gone i changed and grew. but when i came home everything seemed as if it had stood still. this was a really unnerving feeling. i wish i could crack open my brain and let you take a peek at the havoc i was in the middle of. i went about my daily life as normally as i could, but inside the teeniest chores seemed like mountains. it was often that i'd get in my car and start driving to the grocery store or church and i'd just weep. i'd have to pull over to the side of the road so i wouldn't crash.
my first christmas home marked a really important anniversary for me. the previous year i was breathing sweet, sweet south african air and staring at a completely different set of stars. so, that first christmas back in the land of southern california was hard. about a week before christmas i asked God for a very special miracle. i asked him to bring me back to africa, even if only for an hour. i knew it was crazy, but that's all i wanted. i just wanted one moment back where my heart first learned to beat.
a couple days after i prayed that prayer i happened to be flipping through channels and i landed on an episode of oprah. i never watched oprah (i was young and hadn't yet realized the awesome power of the o) but for some reason i decided to just watch for a few minutes. that was the beginning of my miracle. when i had been in africa we kept hearing that oprah was there too. we'd visit an orphanage and the workers would tell us stories of how they had met oprah. i hadn't really thought much of it. but a year later i was watching an episode where oprah showed the footage of her time in south africa. for an hour, i got to see the places i had walked and she even interviewed people i had met. she held babies i had held. God gave me my hour and oh how precious that hour was.
ok you're probably wondering what all that has to do with the amazing lesson i learned. a couple days ago oprah re aired some of the footage from that episode. she was talking about how she learned to take chances and see the joy in life. then she posed this question: "what would you do if you weren't afraid?"
i started thinking about the chelsea that went to africa. the girl who got on a plane with 12 people she had only known for three months. the girl who spoke in prisons, hammered nails, sat by bedsides, and believed there was nothing too big for her Jesus. it's been almost 10 years since that trip. in those 10 years i have let fear creep back into my life. i have forgotten that i am a daughter of the most high God. i have let my God get small, but "small" isn't a word you can use to describe Yahweh.
oprah's question is a good one. but if i was posing it, i would word it a little bit differently. WHAT WOULD YOU LET GOD DO IF YOU WEREN'T AFRAID? let Him work through you. let Him give you miracles. trust Him with the most tender parts of your heart. if you do you just might see mountains move and what a sight that would be.
